Basketball Faces CSU; Volleyball to Learn Fate -- SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Late again! This week I'm over a day late. Let's hope the trend doesn't continue. After the sleeping restlessly Friday night, my body needed last night to recover, setting me up to sleep until nearly 10AM. Everything should be back on track next week.

WBB Travels to Fort Collins

Having taken their Thanksgiving holiday break on the road, the Louisville women's basketball team has one more stop before returning back to the Ville. The Cards will take on the Rams from Colorado State today at 2PM Eastern. CSU is part of the Mountain West Conference, who hosts their own "network." Today's game will be available for streaming via the site, which you can find at this link. The Rams host most of their games via that service, so we'll hope for a higher quality production than the jumbotron feed from Washington that didn't even include a shot clock.

Louisville is coming off of their 40-point romp against Cal Poly, while CSU's last game saw their largest margin of victory since the opener. The Rams beat Lipscomb 81-55 last Sunday, which is second only to their 35-point stomping of Colorado Christian on November 9th. Lipscomb is just 1-3 this season with their only victory coming against Shorter University, a private Baptist university in Georgia with an enrollment of about 2,000. Colorado State is undefeated, though, having also beaten Northern Colorado, Oral Roberts, and Denver. Colorado Christian does not compete at the Division 1 level, and CSU's four D1 opponents are a combined 6-14 so far this season.

Louisville doesn't have a ton of room to talk, as their victories boast a 7-14 record, while Arizona, Louisville's lone loss, brings the overall opponents' record to 14-14. Colorado State went 15-6 last season and were picked to finish 4th in the MWC this season. The Rams return just seven players from last year's roster, but one is McKenna Hofschild, a junior guard who was named to the Preseason All-Mountain West Team. Hofschild was the POTW last week in the MWC, averaging 19 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists over three games.

Last season, the Rams ranked well in categories that could spell trouble for the Cards. CSU was a top-ten team in ATO (5th), defensive rebounds (6th), 3-point percentage (6th), and they turned the ball over at the second lowest rate in the country. So far this season, in the same stats, the Rams rank first, third, twenty-third, and first. Louisville must be disciplined on defense and make their own shots on the first try. With five players listed at 6-1 or taller, CSU is bound to make it difficult to find second chance points. Louisville is 48th in turnovers forced, 21st in three-point field goal defense, and do not rank in the top-30 in offensive rebounds per game (for some reason, this stat is not populating beyond that top 30). 

The statistical matchups aren't ideal, but with then season being so young and the strength of opponent varying so wildly, it is hard to draw too many conclusions. Louisville does have the better team on paper, despite the cherry-picked stats, and the voters think so as well. However, Louisville has appeared sluggish at times. With CSU being on longer rest and playing at home in front of a white-out crowd, the Cards cannot afford to come out slow or they may find themselves playing catch-up. In a momentum game like basketball, that can make all the difference.

Louisville will be looking to even up the series history between the two teams, as they have played three times, starting in 1990. The Cards won that first matchup, played in the Seelbach Hotel, but lost both games that followed. The last time the two teams played was in 2001, so there isn't much in terms of recent history to cause bad blood. The biggest question is: Who will Sean Moth be rooting for?

Once again, today's game gets underway at 2PM ET and is on the Mountain West Network site.

Volleyball Selection Show Tonight

Typically, the selection shows for non-revenue sports are at extremely late hours on Decision Day because the NCAA doesn't expect them to be much of a spectacle and there isn't network pressure to finish any Decision Day games well in advance of the show as there is in basketball. Volleyball will be a bit different, as they'll get this one underway at 8:30PM. So long as they don't over-dramatize it, the show should end at a reasonable time. The show will air on ESPNU, which is another improvement over some of the other sports which just see their shows relegated to a live stream on the NCAA website. The 6:30 slot holds Miami vs Alabama in basketball, and there is no buffer between the events, so there is a chance that the show either starts delayed or on some other viewing platform.

As Jeff mentioned yesterday, there shouldn't be very much anticipation as far as Louisville's seeding goes. The Cards have been the top-ranked team in the AVCA Poll since November 8th and are currently receiving all but two first place votes. Louisville is also ranked number one in RPI, three spots ahead of Texas. If you're a Longhorns fan, that's got to be more concerning than the AVCA ranking. Pittsburgh takes the second slot there, followed by Baylor, before Texas comes in at fourth. I don't expect Texas to appear with a four next to their name tonight, but we'll see what happens. 

The real question becomes which teams will be headed to Louisville next weekend. The Cards will certainly hope they don't have to face Western Kentucky, a team they are very familiar with. The Hilltoppers are on the fringe of getting a seed of their own, but it will be tough. They're ranked 16th in the current AVCA Poll and sit at 19th in RPI. WKU went 27-1 this season, with the lone loss coming at home against Ole Miss. Ole Miss is ranked 50th in RPI, so that's not a great loss. 

The most recent projections for the bracket came out over two weeks ago on November 11th, so they may not hold a ton of value, but they sent WKU to Purdue, giving the Boilermakers the 12 seed. Purdue sits at 6th in the AVCA and 8th in RPI so they may be a bit higher up, and WKU may find themselves getting the opportunity to take on an even lower (higher?.. worse) seeded team. 

That same projection had Louisville hosting Morehead State, Dayton, and UCF, with all three being automatic qualifiers and the Cards facing Morehead State as, officially, the 64th ranked team. Dayton and UCF did their part and earned those AQ bids, but Morehead State did not. The Eagles were toppled by Southeast Missouri last week in the OVC Championship match. SEMO is ranked 87th in RPI, so it may be as simple as just swapping those two teams in the bracketology.

All of our questions will be answered tonight and the Cards will welcome their challengers to L&N Federal Credit Union Arena on Thursday.  

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

The show was hosted by just a trio yesterday, as I sat out, but Paulie, Jeff, and Jared took good care of the listeners. If you want to check the show out on YouTube, or subscribe to the channel, the two links below will take you to the channel page or directly to this week's show. If you're more the podcast type, links to various platforms are included, or you can find the show on your platform of choice by searching for "Cardinal Couple Radio Hour."

Cardinal Couple YouTube: Link

11-27-2021 show; YouTube: Link

Anchor (podcast host): Link

Apple Podcasts: Link

Breaker: Link

Google Podcasts: Link

Overcast (free account required): Link

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RadioPublic: Link

Spotify: Link

Until next time, Go Cards!

-CH-

Volleyball Tops Duke for ACC Title; WBB Taking on Washington -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Volleyball Clinches Share of ACC with Another Sweep

Louisville brought Duke into the L&N Federal Credit Union Arena for their second to last home match of the regular season with a chance to clinch a share of the ACC on the line, and they dispatched the Blue Devils with ease. The Cards will face Pittsburgh in the rematch next Wednesday with a win securing the title outright, so moving on from Duke with no drama was a highly desired result. Louisville's offense delivered with an extremely efficient match, finishing with an eye popping 0.547 hitting percentage. On the other side, the Cards defended well, forcing Duke into just an 0.028 percentage. 

The 519 point difference was far and away the best margin for Louisville this year, beating the previous high of 450, set against Boston College on October 8th. Louisville has now hit for at least 0.400 seven times this season and have held opponents to 0.050 or lower nine times. While last night was their best hitting performance of the night, the Cards have held opponents to a lower percentage three times before, with the season best coming when they held Miami (the team now in third in the ACC after GT lost to Pitt) to 0.000 on the night.

Louisville finished with 12 blocks over three sets that night against Miami, while they needed just eight last night. The Cards won the blocking battle 8-1 with Amaya Tillman leading the way. Tillman finished with a pair of solo blocks and a pair of assists, while Tori Dilfer claimed the other solo and another pair of assists. Anna Stevenson, Claire Chaussee, and Aiko Jones earned the remaining blocks, with 3, 2, and 1 block assist, respectively.

Another place where Louisville had a big advantage once more was in the service game. The Cards had nine service errors, but still finished positive with 12 aces. As Jeff pointed out in our group chat, Duke struggled with the serve receive, at one point putting five players back to receive and still getting aced. Duke, to their credit, finished with six aces of their own, but had eight errors to stay in the negative. Louisville was led by Anna DeBeer, who had four aces, with Stevenson following closely behind with three. Ayden Bartlett had two aces with Dilfer, Jones, and Mia Stander adding one apiece. 

Stevenson, unsurprisingly, also topped the charts in the kills column, as she has done frequently recently. Stevenson led both teams with 10 kills, followed by Chaussee with seven, DeBeer with six, Tillman with five, and Jones with four. Every player hit better than .250, which is to be expected with the overall hitting percentage. Jones's .286 was lowest on the team, made that way by just two errors. The team finished with just five total. 

The offense gets a lot of credit in volleyball, but Louisville's defense has been a bright star this season with Elena Scott at the helm. Scott was all over the place again, gathering eight digs, leading all players and nearly matching Duke's total of 11. One of her best came on a scramble drill play that ultimately saw an early over from the Cards and ended with, you guessed it, an Anna Stevenson block. The Cards have had a tradition of great libero play, and Scott has stepped into that role without a blink. She's a major part of what is driving this team's success.

As for the match itself, it was as straightforward as the stats make it out to be. Louisville used both big runs and consistent play to coast to a 25-12, 25-16, 25-15 victory. The closest Duke could come after the 10-point mark came in the second set when they closed the gap to 14-16. The Cards promptly rattled off six of the next seven points to close the door. In the third, Louisville trailed 4-3 before taking eight straight points and 16 of the next 19 to seal the set and the match. 

Pittsburgh knocked off Georgia Tech last night to move 14-2 in the ACC and keep their hopes for a share of the title alive. Louisville still controls their own destiny, though, as they need just one victory in their last two matches to win the league outright. These Cards are playing for more than just the ACC at this point, however. As the number one team in the country, Louisville is playing for its best season ever and for a top seed in the NCAA tournament. The Cards stand to host, at least, a couple of rounds in that tournament, and, while they could still get a seed and host with a loss to Pitt, it would feel a lot sweeter to carry that undefeated record into the postseason.

Louisville will head to Pittsburgh for the Panthers' Senior Night on Wednesday. There is an extremely outside shot that Louisville could win the league outright before that match if Clemson can somehow upset Pitt when they host them tomorrow. Whether the Panthers win or lose, it will benefit the Cards for Pittsburgh to be playing their third match in six days. There's no video listed yet, but this seems like a prime candidate for a ACCN nod. The first serve is scheduled to get the match underway at 5PM on Wednesday. 

Basketball Hits the Road

Louisville retreated to the KFC Yum! Center after the tough opening loss against Arizona and recovered with a pair of big wins. They'll try to carry that confidence back out of the building with them as they start a road trip in Seattle today. The Cards will take on the Huskies of Washington to kick off a three-game swing out west where they'll also take on Cal Poly and Colorado State. It's a bit of a homecoming for a few Louisville players, though the Colorado connection is a bit thin since the departure of Kylee Shook. Nonetheless, Hailey Van Lith will be at home in Washington, with Kianna Smith and Ramani Parker both hailing from about three hours away from San Luis Obispo in California. 

Louisville and Washington have never played each other, but there's a first time for everything. The Huskies are also led by a Ha(i)ley Van, with Haley Van Dyke returning after being named honorable mention for both the All-Pac12 and the All-Pac12 Defensive Teams last season. She is currently leading the team in points and rebounds, averaging a double-double through two games. The Huskies also return Alexis Griggsby, who shot 38% from three last season while starting 18 games. 

Newcomers to the team include head coach Tina Langley, who takes over a team that went 7-14 (3-13) last year. Langley comes from Rice, where she went 126-61 in six years and won the WNIT in her final season. Langley brought along the top two scorers from Rice's 2020-2021 team in (not a misprint) 6'9" center Nancy Mulkey and Lauren Schwartz. Mulkey is preseason All-Pac 12 and on the Lisa Leslie Award Watch List.

Washington is 2-0 on the young season, with a 57-51 victory over San Diego State in the opener and a 72-65 win against Northern Arizona on Sunday. Despite two wins, the Huskies have been mercurial offensively. They're averaging 30 turnovers per game but are shooting 45% from the floor. Washington made seven of sixteen threes against NAU but were quite a bit cooler in the opener. This should be Louisville's opportunity to show their defensive chops against a top division opponent. 

Today's game tips off at 5 PM Eastern and will be carried on the Pac12 Network Plus. Pac12 Network does not have a direct connection with a main distributor like the ACC or SEC has with ESPN or the B1G has with FOX, but there is some availability to watch this one. A fair number of cable providers will give you access to watching this one, but YouTube TV isn't one of them. You can check for yourself if your provider has access at this link.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

After taking last week off, the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast is back live this week and we'll have an exciting show. With a pair of basketball wins and plenty of volleyball still to talk about, we're handling the transition from fall to winter as gracefully as we can. As always, you can check out the live stream of the show by going to the Cardinal Couple YouTube page and clicking on the live video. Jeff usually creates that about an hour before the show, which officially starts at 11 AM Eastern. If the live time doesn't work for you, there are plenty of playback options, so be sure to check out whichever is best for you!

Cardinal Couple YouTube: Link

Anchor (podcast host): Link

Apple Podcasts: Link

Breaker: Link

Google Podcasts: Link

Overcast (free account required): Link

Pocket Casts (free account and app required): Link

RadioPublic: Link

Spotify: Link

Until next time, Go Cards!

-CH-

Soccer Opener; FIBA U19 Results; WBB Schedule -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Women's Soccer Opens Season with Exhibition vs Ball State

Despite some confusion throughout the week about the nature of this game, it was never in doubt that Louisville would open the season tonight against Ball State. Earlier this week, during fall sports media day, Coach Karen Ferguson-Dayes emphasized that tonight's match would be an exhibition. That was news, as the game had not been listed as such on Louisville's schedule, nor was it called out as an exhibition in Louisville's schedule press release. However, last week's schedule press release from Ball State did call the game an exhibition, indicating that it has been considered one by the two sides for quite some time. That said, all that really does is give the Cards one less game on their regular season schedule. 

For the time being, it may take some of the pressure off of the team which has quite a few questions to answer. We saw what Louisville women's soccer looked like in the spring without Emina Ekic at the helm and it wasn't the prettiest action on the field. The Cards became a bit of a one trick pony on offense with Ekic, a point we've belabored here at Cardinal Couple, so getting an exhibition game to try and figure out what the team formation looks like now that the freshman players have been added to that roster from the spring should be very helpful before the real season opener next Thursday against Western Michigan. 

These two Cardinal teams last faced off in 2016, a forgettable season for Louisville. UofL went 7-7-4 that season, missing out on both the ACC and NCAA tournaments. Ball State was Louisville's seventh of eight non-conference opponents that year and the matchup came in Louisville's sixth straight home match. Louisville dominated the game with 23 shots (11 on frame) compared to just 4 (2) for Ball State. Unfortunately, the Ball State goalkeeper was up to the task, snagging 11 saves. The game was won with a Ball state golden goal in the 108th minute. We don't need to get into a whole discussion about college soccer tie rules (either tie in regulation or play the full overtimes, please), but that game was one of eight that Louisville played in 2016 that went into extra time. 

No one that played in the game for Louisville in 2016 remains on the roster, so it will be a fresh start for this Louisville team. The Cards will hope to get their feet under them as they look to build on the last few years in which they have seen growing success. Things will be hard without Ekic, as we have discussed, but there is a lot of talent on this team. Tonight's game will be the first opportunity to see whether that talent will be able to come together to continue to propel the Louisville women's soccer program forward. The match in Lynn Stadium will begin at 7:30PM. It is free to the public and attendance at soccer matches this season are free. All visitors are subject to the UofL bag policy, but no COVID-19 policies are readily available for information.

USA Thumps Spain in Quarterfinals 

Payton Verhulst didn't get the start yesterday afternoon against Spain, but she did play the second most minutes of any non-starter for Team USA. The Yanks continued their domination of the event with a 98-64 victory over the Spaniards to advance to the semifinals to face Hungary today at 11:30 AM. 

Spain's 64 points were the most scored against USA so far in the tournament, and 34 points has been Team USA's smallest margin of victory. Their next closest game was a 40-point win over Australia in the second game of the group round. Spain also played USA to their two closest quarters so far in the tournament as USA won the second and fourth quarters of yesterday's game by only three and four points, respectively. After a 30-18 victory in the first quarter, though, Team USA was never in danger of yielding the lead. 

As it was against Taiwan, yesterday's victory was a group effort. Six players scored in double figures, with four of five starters accomplishing the feat. Collectively, the team shot 54.1% from the floor, going 40% from three-point land. Verhulst's 13 points were tied with Diamond Johnson as the most by a non-starter and fourth-most on the team. Payton added in five rebounds, an assist, a block, and a steal. She was 5/7 from the floor and 3/4 from beyond the arc. Against a much tougher opponent than the previous game, this performance may be more impressive than the one she gave earlier in the week. Caitlin Clark led the team with 17 points and she (6/6) and Sonia Citron (7/7) were both perfect from the free throw line.

USA and Hungary have played two common opponents in the tournament, as Taiwan was in Hungary's group and Hungary played their Round of 16 game against Italy from the USA's group. Hungary beat Taiwan 99-42, a dominating win but not quite the 129-45 victory that USA put up. The more interesting comparison is the game against Italy. Hungary snuck past Italy in the opening round of the knockout stage 54-48. Team USA opened the tournament with a 96-37 victory over Italy. We'll keep up with this game during the show, and Jeff will cover the results in tomorrow's article.

Women's Basketball Releases Non-Con Schedule

Though we already knew a few games on Louisville's schedule this season due to press releases, the official non-conference schedule was released in full yesterday. Louisville will play six home games, three road games, and two "neutral" games. The Cards get just one exhibition game this season, as they'll host Union College on November 4th. 

I put neutral in quotes, because the second of Louisville's neutral court games is an effective home game for the opposing team. The first, as we know, is the season opener against Arizona in South Dakota. Hardly any concerns about the crowd going one way or the other there. The second, however, is the Hall of Fame Women's Showcase. This game will be a rescheduling of the matchup against UCONN that was scuttled last year due to COVID-19. The game will be played in Uncasville, Connecticut, a mere 45-minute drive from Storrs. That game will round out what is likely to be a tough week for the Cards, as they'll play three games in eight days. Louisville hosts Kentucky on the 12th of December and EKU on the 16th in the Jimmy V Classic before heading to Connecticut for the Clash of the Titans on December 19th. That will be Louisville's final non-conference game on the schedule.

Prior to the Kentucky matchup, Louisville will play six previously unannounced games, along with the ACC-Big Ten Challenge game against Michigan. The season opener will come against Bellarmine on November 16th, meaning we are just outside of three months from the beginning of the college basketball season. The Cards get a short turnaround before hosting a second mid-week game against UT-Martin on November 18th. 

There's no rest for the weary, though, as Louisville will jump straight on a plane for a swing out west. The Cards head to Washington to take on the Huskies on November 20th before going down the coast to Cal Poly on November 23rd. The team will presumably come back to Louisville for Thanksgiving before heading to Fort Collins to play Colorado State on November 28th. 

The first week of December sees Michigan on the 2nd and Belmont on the 5th before the aforementioned tough week against Kentucky, EKU, and Connecticut. Louisville's non-conference schedule includes five NCAA tournament teams and four teams that won at least 20 games last season. In a season where some teams barely played 20 games, that achievement is even more impressive. The Cards could easily face five ranked teams in the non-conference schedule and will have plenty of challenges before getting into ACC play.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

The show is a bit thinner today with Jared and Daryl out for various reasons, but we should have plenty to discuss given all of the news that has come our way this week. We'll cover fall sports media day, the basketball schedule release and look a the season opener for women's soccer. Join us as we bring you the joy and excitement of UofL women's athletics on this week's Cardinal Couple Radio Hour. As always, you can check out the live stream of the show by going to the Cardinal Couple YouTube page and clicking on the live video. Jeff usually creates that about an hour before the show, which officially starts at 11 AM Eastern. If the live time doesn't work for you, there are plenty of playback options, so be sure to check out whichever is best for you!

Cardinal Couple YouTube: Link

Anchor (podcast host): Link

Apple Podcasts: Link

Breaker: Link

Google Podcasts: Link

Overcast (free account required): Link

Pocket Casts (free account and app required): Link

RadioPublic: Link

Spotify: Link

Until next time, Go Cards!

-CH-